/Summary: 1970 Trip to Europe

(August 18 to September 14)

We purchased tickets for a charter airline flight to Frankfurt, Germany, and the papers for our previously purchased VW Camper were pressed into our hands without identification. We drove through Darmstadt, saw a little of Mannheim, then collapsed in a muddle of jet-lag below the Heidelberg Castle.

We visited Ulm, and spent a night in Stuttgart. We looked at construction for the 1972 Olympics, ate dinner in the Munich Ratskeller, and spent a couple of hours at Munich’s infamous suburb, Dachau. After an hour-plus at Berchtesgaden, the vacation home for Hitler, we spent a night in Salzburg.

Venice, an exciting city with St. Mark’s Cathedral, with gondolas and flamboyant beauty, was built on 117 islands separated by 150 canals and connected by 400 bridges. Next day we continued to Bologna, whose streets are lined with arcades and towers. We rested overnight in the campsite next to the Piazzale Michelangiolo, overlooking the towers and cathedral domes in the city of Florence.

During the next couple of days we visited the Coliseum, the Roman Forum, St. Callistus Catacombs, and the Vatican, an inadequate few of the wonders of Rome, then spent a day visiting Pompeii. We visited da Vinci’s “Last Supper” and the outstanding Cathedral in Milan, then crossed the border to Interlaken and Bern, Switzerland for a couple of days.

From our campsite along the Marne River, we rode the Metro to central Paris, our first view of this favorite city was the Arc de Triomphe. During the next couple of days we saw the Eiffel Tower, Palace at Versailles, and dozens of other sights.

We then crossed the English Channel and saw Westminster Abby, Westminster Hall with Big Ben, the Tower of London, shopped on Oxford Street, watched the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, spent a night with Emmy's WW II pen-pal, and a few hours at Stonehenge. After a day in Brussels, we saw the Anna Frank house, and spent a couple of days in Amsterdam.

A day was spent in West Berlin, then we crossed at Checkpoint Charlie for a three hour tour of East Berlin. Then to Cologne (Köln) to see the beautiful Cathedral, followed by a few days meeting Emmy’s cousins in Euskirchen, Saarburg, and Mettlach, Germany. What a fabulous 28 day trip.